University of California

Kuanfu Chen

Wentai Liu

Yi-Kai Lo

Richard A Hill

An apparatus and method for electrical charge balancing when generating a stimulus during functional neural stimulation is presented. A stimulus pulse is generated (cathodic or anodic), and after a selected delay a charge compensating pulse is generated of an opposite polarity. The electrode circuit discontinuously examines electrode voltage after termination of the stimulus pulse, and utilizes this voltage to determine how long to extend the width of the charge compensating pulse. The electrode circuit thus performs accurate electrical charge cancellation to remove residual charges from the electrode by precisely controlling pulse width for an opposing polarity compensating pulse that need not have the same current level as the stimulus pulse.

Electrical charge balancing method and apparatus for functional stimulation using precision pulse width compensation

A high channel count high-voltage neural stimulator provides an external circuit which communicates power and data to a neural stimulator implant circuit. Data from the external device, such as image data from a camera in an epiretinal application, are communicated to the implant. Multiple pixels circuits, within each implant demultiplex the digital signals, then output separate nerve stimulator outputs from multiple outputs, each configured for connection to a nerve, by sharing a single level conversion driver circuit. In at least one example, the implant circuits can be clustered in a master-slave configuration to increase the number of available neural stimulation outputs.

Growing community of inventors

Los Angeles, CA, United States of America

Kuanfu Chen